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MUSE
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{{dablink|For the British rock band, see
Muse (band).}}
{{otheruses}}
{{Greek myth (personified)}}
In
Greek mythology, the '''Muses''' (
Greek language Greek Μουσαι, ''Mousai'') are nine archaic goddesses who embody the right evocation of myth, inspired through remembered and improvised song and traditional "music" and dances. They were water
nymphs, associated with the springs of
Helicon and
Pieris. They are sometimes called Pierides from their association with the spring of
Pieres. The Olympian system set
Apollo as their leader, ''Apollon Mousagetes.''
According to
Hesiod's ''
Theogony'', they are the daughters of
Zeus, king of the gods, and
Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. For
Alcman and
Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from
Uranus (mythology) Uranus and
Gaia (mythology) Gaia.
Pausanias (geographer) Pausanias supports that there were two generations of Muses; the first being daughters of
Uranus (mythology) Uranus and
Gaia (mythology) Gaia, the second from
Zeus and
Mnemosyne. Another rarer belief is that they are daughters of
Harmonia (Greek goddess) Harmonia (the daughter of
Aphrodite and
Ares) which contradicts with the myth in which they were dancing in the marriage of
Harmonia (Greek goddess) Harmonia and
Cadmus.
Compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the
Camenae.
Muses in myth
Image:Eustache Le Sueur 002.jpg Eustache Le Sueur.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|The Muses Clio, Euterpe und Thalia, by [[Eustache Le Sueur.html" title="Meaning of right|The Muses Clio, Euterpe und Thalia, by [[Eustache Le Sueur">thumb|right|The Muses Clio, Euterpe und Thalia, by [[Eustache Le Sueur">right|The Muses Clio, Euterpe und Thalia, by [[Eustache Le Sueur">thumb|right|The Muses Clio, Euterpe und Thalia, by [[Eustache Le Sueur
According to
Pausanias (geographer) Pausanias there were three original Muses:
Aoide ("song", "voice"),
Melete ("practice" or "occasion") and
Mneme ("memory") (Paus. 9.29.1). Together, they form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in
cult (religion) cult practice. In
Delphi three Muses were worshipped as well but with other names:
Nete (lyre chord) Nete,
Mesi and
Hypate which are the names of the three chords of the ancient musical instrument
lyre.
In later tradition, the fourth Muse,
Arche (mythology) Arche, was also considered.
The canonical nine Muses are:
*
Calliope (epic poetry)
*
Euterpe (music)
*
Clio (history)
*
Erato (lyrics/love poetry)
*
Melpomene (tragedy)
*
Polyhymnia (sacred poetry)
*
Terpsichore (dancing)
*
Thalia (comedy)
*
Urania (muse) Urania (astronomy)
Image:Musas.jpg thumb|left|The Muses dancing with Apollo, by Baldassare Peruzzi
Together, they form a complete picture of the subjects proper to poetic art in the archaic period. However, the association of specific muses with specific art forms is a later innovation.
In
Roman Empire Roman,
Renaissance and
Neoclassicism Neoclassical art, Muses depicted in sculptures or paintings are often distinguished by certain props or poses, as
emblems.
Euterpe (music) carries a flute;
Calliope (epic poetry) carries a writing tablet;
Clio (history) carries a scroll and books;
Erato (lyric poetry) is often seen with a lyre and a crown of roses;
Melpomene (tragedy) is often seen with a tragic mask;
Polyhymnia (sacred poetry) is often seen with a pensive expression;
Terpsichore (dancing) is often seen dancing and carrying a lyre;
Thalia (comedy) is often seen with a comic mask; and
Urania (astronomy) carries a staff pointed at a celestial globe.
Function in Society
Greek ''mousa'' is a common noun as well as a type of goddess: it literally means "song" or "poem". In
Pindar, to "carry a ''mousa''" is "to sing a song". The word is probably derived from the Indo-European root *''men-'', which is also the source of Greek ''
Mnemosyne'', Latin ''
Minerva'', and English "mind", "mental" and "memory".
The Muses were therefore both the embodiments and sponsors of performed metrical speech: ''mousike'', whence "music"; was "the art of the Muses". In the archaic period, before the wide-spread availability of books, this included nearly all of learning: the first Greek book on astronomy, by
Thales, was set in
dactylic hexameter, as were many works of
pre-Socratic philosophy; both
Plato and the
Pythagoras Pythagoreans explicitly included philosophy as a sub-species of ''mousike'' (
Strabo 10.3.10).
Herodotus, whose primary medium of delivery was public recitation, named each one of the nine books of his ''Histories'' after a different Muse.
For poet and "law-giver"
Solon (fragment 13), the Muses were "the key to the good life"; since they brought both prosperity and friendship. Solon sought to perpetuate his political reforms by establishing recitations of his poetry—complete with invocations to his practical-minded Muses—by Athenian boys at festivals each year.
The Muses judged the contest between
Apollo (god) Apollo and
Marsyas. They also gathered the pieces of the dead body of
Orpheus, son of
Calliope, and buried them. They blinded
Thamyris for his
hubris in challenging them to a contest.
Function in literature
The muses are typically invoked at or near the beginning of an epic poem or classical Greek story. They have served as aids to an author, or as the true speaker; for which an author is only a mouthpiece. Originally, the invocation of the Muse was an indication that the speaker was working inside the poetic tradition, according to the established formulae. Three classic examples :
:
Homer, in Book I of "
The Odyssey":
::"Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
::driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
::the hallowed heights of Troy." (
Robert Fagles translation, 1996)
:
Vergil, in Book I of "
The Aeneid":
::O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;
::What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;
::For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began
::To persecute so brave, so just a man; [...]
::(
John Dryden translation, 1995)
:
Dante Alighieri, in Canto II of
The Inferno:
::O Muses, o high genius, aid me now!
::O memory that noted what I saw,
::Now shall your true nobility be seen!
Cults of the Muses
When
Pythagoras arrived at Croton, his first advice to the Crotoniates was to build a shrine of the Muses at the center of the city, to promote civic harmony and learning.
Local cults of the Muses were often associated with springs or fountains. They were sometimes called Aganippids because of their association with a fountain called
Aganippe. Other fountains, called
Hippocrene and
Pirene were also important to the Muses. The Muses were also occasionally referred to as "Corycides", or "Corycian
nymph nymphs" after a cave on
Parnassos Mount Parnassos, called the
Corycian Cave.
The Muses were especially venerated in
Boeotia, near
Helicon, and in
Delphi and the
Parnassus, where Apollo became known as ''Mousagetes'' "Muse-leader".
Muse-worship was also often associated with the
Greek hero cult hero-cults of poets: the tombs of
Archilochus on
Thasos and
Hesiod and
Thamyris (whom they blinded) in
Boeotia, all played host to festivals, in which poetic recitations were accompanied by sacrifices to the Muses.
The
Library of Alexandria and its circle of scholars were formed around a ''mousaion'' ("
museum" or shrine of the Muses) close by the tomb of
Alexander the Great.
Many
Age of Enlightenment Enlightenment figures sought to re-establish a "Cult of the Muses" in the
18th century. A famous
Freemasonry Masonic lodge in pre-Revolutionary
Paris, France Paris was called [http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/nine.html ''Neuf Soeurs''] ("nine sisters", i.e. nine Muses), and was attended by
Voltaire,
Benjamin Franklin,
Georges Danton Danton and other influential Enlightenment figures. One side-effect of this movement was the use of the word "museum" (originally, "cult place of the Muses") to refer to a place for the public display of knowledge.
Miscellaneous
*The poet
Sappho of
Lesbos Island Lesbos was paid the compliment of being called "the tenth Muse" by
Plato.
*The word ''muse'' may be used figuratively, to denote someone who
inspiration inspires an artist.
*
Augustine of Hippo St. Augustine writes on the origin of the Legend of the Nine Muses in Book 2 of his work "On Christian Doctrine" in Chapter 17, and elaborates on a refutation by Varro.
*In
New Orleans, nine streets are named after the Muses.
*The muses appear as co-
narrators of the Disney movie ''
Hercules (1997 film) Hercules'' and its spin-off ''
Hercules (animated series) series''.
* Muses feature in the
graphic novel The Sandman (DC Comics Modern Age) The Sandman by
Neil Gaiman.
*The Muses feature prominently in the musical film
Xanadu (film) Xanadu starring
Olivia Newton-John (as
Terpsichore),
Gene Kelly and
Michael Beck; directed by
Robert Greenwald.
*14-year-old
boy treble Neil Pritchard acts as a muse to a young composer in Ronald Frame's
novel Lantern Bearers, The The Lantern Bearers.
Image:Calliope.jpg|Calliope
Image:clio.jpg|Clio
Image:erato.jpg|Erato
Image:euterpemuse.jpg|Euterpe, left, with Urania
Image:Melpomene.jpg|Melpomene
Image:Polyhymnia.jpg|Polyhymnia
Image:Statue of Terpsichore.JPG|Terpsichore
Image:Thalia.jpg|Thalia
Image:Urania (M.A.N. Madrid) 01.jpg|Urania
Category:Arts goddesses
Category:Greek goddesses
Category:Museology
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la:Musae
lb:Muse (Mythologie)
lt:MÅ«zos
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zh:缪斯
:''There is also a MIDI sequencer called
MusE.''
'''MuSE''' is an
acronym that stands for '''Mu'''ltiple '''S'''treaming '''E'''ngine.
MuSE provides the free software community with a user friendly but powerful tool for network audio streaming, making life easier for independent free speech online radios.
MuSE is a GNU/Linux based application for the mixing, encoding, and network streaming of
sound: it can mix up to 6 encoded audio bitstreams (from files or network,
MP3 or
Vorbis Ogg Vorbis) plus a sound card input signal, the resulting stream can be played locally on the sound card and/or encoded at different bitrates, recorded to hard disk and/or streamed to the net. When sent to a server, the resulting audio can be listened through the net by a vast number of players available on different operating systems.
To be operated MuSE offers graphical interfaces and a documented command line interface.
MuSE is free software written by
Jaromil (who also developed the
Linux LiveCD,
dyne:bolic)and released under the
GNU General Public License.
See also
*
Digital Audio Workstation
*
Peercasting
External links
-
MuSE homepage
Category:Free audio software
{{compu-soft-stub}}
see
MuSE
see
Muse
*** Shopping-Tip: MUSE
